


Bitter Mouthwash

by shslAO3_fanficWriter



Series: Peony and Plum Hand Soap [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Kaede has some bad thoughts so be careful ig, Major Spoilers, brief mentions of self harm, kaede centric, lots of trauma mentions, most characters are mentioned but this is about Kaede, rated teen for a few curse words and iffy material, vr au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23483431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shslAO3_fanficWriter/pseuds/shslAO3_fanficWriter
Summary: Faded eyes glaze hazily over to the monotonous chirp of clapping hands.  When a show ends, hands move together in a deafening roar of applause.  The clap of the clock hands is continuous, that is until the batteries run out.  But time never stops.  It never stops, no matter how much you want it to.  No matter how much you fear for your life, the metal claw of death will always wrap itself around your neck and lift you high into the heavens, only to let your limp body hang before your once applauding audience.
Series: Peony and Plum Hand Soap [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689475
Kudos: 32





	Bitter Mouthwash

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

_Faded eyes glaze hazily over to the monotonous chirp of clapping hands. When a show ends, hands move together in a deafening roar of applause. The clap of the clock hands is continuous, that is until the batteries run out. But time never stops. It never stops, no matter how much you want it to. No matter how much you fear for your life, the metal claw of death will always wrap itself around your neck and lift you high into the heavens, only to let your limp body hang before your once applauding audience._

Time stops for no one, even for the dead. This is evident by the fact that even after her body had gone cold in her own cold blood, Kaede still woke up the next morning. Her body felt sore all over, and her neck screamed out in a terrible ache as she coughed and struggled for air. Fuzzy faces with nondescript features clad in long, white coats and aprons flock to her and noises that sound vaguely of voices hiss in her ears.

Kaede lays motionless in bed for two weeks with tubes sticking uncomfortably in her arms and up her nose and down her throat. She spends those two weeks facing the changing colors of a television, but it’s not until the middle of the second week that she finally starts to pay attention. On Wednesday of the third week, the tubes are removed from her nose and mouth and she can finally eat on her own, although only soft foods. The following week a physical therapist enters Kaede’s room, accompanied with her nurse, and they discuss a plan to get her muscles strong again. She starts PT the fifth week.

Therapy is on Thursdays for Kaede, and they talk about her brief-yet-too-long experience in Danganronpa. They spend a lot of time talking about her time with Shuichi, because everything else leaves her choking on air again as if there were a thick rope puppeteering her to dance along a grand piano of doom. Every so often she hears about others waking up and her shoulders slump, knowing that it means more people are cracking under Monokuma’s motives and despair. Just like she did.

After a month of meeting with her therapist alone, she starts therapy with Rantaro on Mondays, where now she has to talk about what she did and what it did to Rantaro. He smiles at her, telling her it was only fair since he survived his first killing game, but Kaede doesn’t miss the distance in his eyes. She wants to think positive and do her best, just like how she tried to cheer everyone on before her death, but her chest feels empty and the thought feels wrong. To put a smile on her face now would just be a lie. She’s terrified and filled entirely of guilt, and after three sessions they’re not allowed to meet until Kaede can face herself again.

It takes Kaede three months to accept the fact that she killed Rantaro. When the two meet up again for therapy, Kaede doesn’t need her nurse to spot her as she walks, and she smiles at Rantaro in greeting. It takes a while, but the two eventually become on good enough terms to be more amicable, and sometimes they have lunch together, accompanied by their nurses and therapist.

For the most part, everyone is kept quarantined so that they can cope with the trauma they were put through. Putting everyone in the same room together would cause people to lash out, she thinks one night, and she’s too ashamed to face Shuichi anytime soon. But they are the only ones who know what they went through, and ultimately, no matter how much therapy they get individually, they need each other’s support. So Kaede spends another half a year watching cartoons from her bed as her physical therapist gently stretches her legs.

The killing game has been over for almost a year, but the doctors and therapists only now deem it safe for them to arrange in larger groups. On Tuesday, Kaede is escorted to the group therapy for murderers. Each seat is about two-to-three feet away from each other, all arranged in a circle. She sits down between Korekiyo and Kaito, surprised to see everyone here. The first few sessions are spent getting to know each other better, outside of the deaths they’ve caused. Next they talk about how their bodies are handling the injuries from their deaths. They were all explained the process of how the pain was transferred from the virtual reality to their real bodies soon after they woke up, but even if the injuries aren’t physically there, the pain sure as hell is.

A month after group therapy started and they still haven’t discussed what they did. Kaede’s glad, too scared to know what could have happened to the people she once called friends. When the time finally comes to discuss their crimes, no one wants to talk. The silence lasts for all of 24 seconds before Kaito is coughing into his fist, and soon Kaede joins him, the memory of suffocating still all-too-fresh in her mind.

Kaede doesn’t feel shocked to hear what the others have done. For some reason, it all makes sense. With the crippling motives and horrific backstories they were given, everything really does feel scripted. She feels bad for them. She feels bad for herself. But she can’t feel it in herself to talk to any of them. They go in order of death, meaning Kaede has to speak first, and nothing in the world could have prepared her. Quietly, she explains her motives and how it felt to see Rantaro’s still-warm body laying limp on the ground under her trap. She wanted to vomit, and maybe to die for real, but she could no longer stop herself from spilling everything. The doubts she felt as she picked up the shotput ball for the first time. How her mind felt empty as she arranged the books on the top of the shelves. The guilt that bubbled and blossomed in her chest as she held Shuichi’s hand and told him that everything would be okay. How the only thing on her mind as she released the shotput ball was _how disappointed will Shuichi be?_ After that session, Kaito stops her and tells her about how he approached Shuichi afterwards. It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, but at least Shuichi had someone. She never wanted to hurt him, but no matter how much she denied it, she always knew she would.

Kirumi’s made-up backstory makes her sound like she came straight out of an anime. Kaede asked her if she still would have killed Ryoma if she was given a different story, and she says she doesn’t know. That she doesn’t remember any other backstory. Kaede doesn’t either. Kaede learns that it took Kirumi even longer to get through PT, because her death was a direct result of crashing into the ground, whereas Kaede was already dead when her body was destroyed. They spend their brief walk back to their rooms talking about their routines, and Kaede feels relieved that there’s someone out there who got worse than she did. It leaves her with a bitter taste in her mouth.

Kaede is revolted to learn of Korekiyo’s motive, but no one looks as disgusted as he does. He looks down at his hands as he speaks, recounting every murder he remembers committing, no matter how vague each one sounds. The therapist tries to console him by saying his records from before the game have no mentions of murder, but Korekiyo says it doesn’t matter, because that person isn’t him and he remembers killing. Kaede thinks that the person he is now isn’t whom he was in the game either, but she doesn’t say anything. They don’t talk after the session, and Kaede lays in bed wondering if she should have said something. The sudden guilt leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

Gonta struggles to speak when it’s his turn, his words sounding gibberish when he actually gets something out. Kaito supplies that there was a mistake with the virtual reality’s virtual reality, and that Gonta’s memories of the event were stripped away, and Kaede wishes that she could forget. That she didn’t have nightmares every night. But Gonta doesn’t look unaware. He looks as guilty and sick as the rest of them. He scratches at his face, and therapy has to end early when Gonta ends up cutting too deep and bleeding all over the floor. Kaede numbly stares at the red liquid and has to be forced out of the room by her nurse. The pungent smell is reminiscent of the bitter taste that lingered on Kaede’s tongue when she first woke up.

To learn about what happened between Kaito and Kokichi stuns Kaede only once she’s back in her room. She doesn’t know why Kaito is in with the rest of them if he didn’t have a motive, but he still must have nightmares of killing someone, Kaede thinks. Back in therapy she just thought it was because of official titles; that Kaito had to be in with the rest of the murderers because he was executed. Kaede feels bitter when she learns his execution failed, but she really wants to be happy for him that Monokuma didn’t get his way.

They don’t go over Tsumugi’s murder next Tuesday, and no one is really sure why. Instead, they do a group activity where they all have to color the same image but with different paints to see if they can cooperate. Kaede doesn’t forget that they’re all murderers in that moment, but she does admit to herself that it does feel vaguely like friends having fun. Even if the painting ended up looking like shit. The session ends and Kaede only feels bitter that they had to stop bonding.

Tsumugi finally talks the next week. Her eyes look hallow and are accentuated with dark bags. Every syllable that leaves her lips is monotonous and exhausting. She looks and sounds so tired. So weak. _So vulnerable._ Kaede wants to get up and wrap her slender fingers around Tsumugi’s pale neck, hoping to god that PT has made her muscles strong enough to choke Tsumugi to death quickly, but Tsumugi really doesn’t look like she’d fight back. On Tuesday, she tells her therapist what she thought about with a bitter taste in her mouth.

Everything tastes so bland while Kaede waits for the next therapy session. It’s not that it’s tasteless, like room temperature water, she just tastes no pleasure. The blandness quickly turns into bitterness and she’s moved into a surgery room after she’s caught drinking her mouthwash to try and drown out the taste.

When Monday finally comes, Kaede tells Rantaro about what she heard last Tuesday. They both spend the rest of the session pointedly ignoring the new facts they’re given, and feeling bitter that no one bothered to tell them the truth. Kaede feels even more bitter that Rantaro never told her her plan failed. He knew she didn’t kill him. Once he leaves, Kaede asks the therapist if the can stop meeting on Mondays with Rantaro. She says no.

No one understands why Kaede is in the murderer group therapy the next day, and Kaede wants to cry in anger. She was tricked, falsely accused, and murdered for no reason. All of her energy leaves when her clenched fists become sore, and she realizes that no one really has a reason for being murdered. Whether it worked or not, Kaede still tried to kill someone. Her mouth tastes like vomit and before she can blink her nurse is ushering her out.

They do more group activities the next few sessions, but it doesn’t feel like bonding anymore. Pink paint spills off of her brush and onto her lap and she just stares numbly at it. The sound of the dripping reminds her of her clock. None of the others complain when she screams and throws the red paint, but the therapist does ask her nurse to call for more doctors so that she can be escorted out without hurting anyone.

Kaede isn’t allowed to go to group therapy again because of her outburst. She barely speaks during her individual therapy, and she becomes angrier by the day. A man comes in and introduces himself as a team member with Danganronpa and shows her some photographs, asking her if she recognizes any of them. Her head is empty but she says yes anyway just to get him to leave. Her mouth tastes as bitter as ever when the next day an unfamiliar family comes to visit her. The ones that look like parents scold her, and the girl that looks similar in age to herself fidgets and asks to hug her. Kaede says no and calls for her nurse. She doesn’t know these people and she wants them to leave. She wants to go back to the others.

Next Tuesday Kaede is brought to the victims’ group therapy. They’ve all already gone over their deaths, so she just watches from her own chair as they paint their own shitty image. The atmosphere is tense and the session ends early.

Kaede and Rantaro don’t have Monday therapy anymore. Kaede spent her time thinking she killed him and got better with accepting that fact, but now Rantaro needs to heal with Tsumugi. Plus, they see each other on Tuesdays. After two months of awkward group activities, they spend two sessions briefly going over their deaths again. It’s weird to know the other perspectives of these murders, and Kaede feels like she doesn’t belong. Learning about Miu’s death, Kaede realizes why Kokichi doesn’t come to every session. The therapist later explains that it’s for everyone safety.

Angie gives Kaede weird looks whenever she enters the therapy room, and Rantaro doesn’t make eye contact anymore. When she talks about her own death, no one acknowledges her except for Rantaro, with whom she already had this conversation. She feigns an illness next Tuesday, and her nurse smiles at her pitifully and tells her to rest. She doesn’t go back next Tuesday.

It’s been two years since the killing game ended, and all 16 of them are finally having group therapy together. It’s a disaster. Kaede doesn’t pay attention, but she hears screaming and at one point sees a chair being thrown. She makes eye contact with Kokichi as everyone is told to leave. After five sessions, Kaede notices that there are a few people that never talk. Herself being one of them, there’s also Tsumugi, Korekiyo, Kokichi, Kiibo, and Shuichi. The therapist tells them to talk, of course, but there’s never more than a few syllables from any of them. Kaede has realized that she’s stopped caring. It’s hard to care when every little thing makes you want to vomit. She knows that Tsumugi and Korekiyo don’t talk because of guilt. She could hear it in their voices from the murderer therapy and she can see it in their eyes now. She doesn’t know what happened to Kiibo and Shuichi, but she can’t bare speaking to them. At least not Shuichi. But there’s a bizarre connection she feels with Kokichi because she doesn’t really think he belongs either. He died. He was killed. But he got Miu and Gonta killed. He’s also, in a way, the reason he himself got killed. He’s both a victim and a blackened, just like Kaede. She wants to know how he’s feeling, but just looking at him makes her feel so irrationally angry.

She approaches him one day after a session, and he doesn’t seem surprised. He smirks up at her but its message is hallow and there’s an unfamiliar pain in his eyes. She remembers him being so confident and unabashed, even calling her out for taking things too far. How he looks now just leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. She wanted him to lash out at her, to yell at her for starting the killing game, and laugh at her for falling victim to Tsumugi’s trap. But he never says anything. Kaede doesn’t say anything either. Kaede stomps away and Kokichi follows behind her until he reaches his room. She stares for too long at her mouthwash as she brushes her teeth that night.


End file.
